It is interesting now to see how the U.S. propaganda machine will respond to the ‘unsettling’ prospect of peace when so much had been invested on just the opposite outcome.
As the Biden administration continues to disseminate decidedly pro-war propaganda, crying wolf that a ‘Russian invasion’ of Ukraine will kick off at any moment, it is critical to understand the reasons why U.S. policymakers are employing such irresponsible and dangerous rhetoric.
Ironically, in the event that a military conflict really did break out between Russia and Ukraine, the one country that would be the most surprised is the one that stands guilty of peddling the most misinformation to date: yes, the United States of Hysteria.
Over the weekend, amid a torrent of anonymous “classified intelligence” that a ‘Russian invasion’ was just over the horizon, Kiev called Washington’s bluff and asked for something that the United States almost never provides to friends and enemies alike (it’s enough to recall the days leading up to the War in Iraq), which is rock-solid evidence.
“If you or any other people have any additional information about the 100% Russian invasion in Ukraine starting on the 16th [of February], please give us this information,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remarked wryly during a weekend presser. “We work on a daily basis, receiving information from our intelligence. We are also grateful to other intelligence agencies of other countries.”
This surprise request by the Ukrainian leader, who seemed to finally comprehend that things were getting real, and fast, prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova to remark: “Have you ever seen anything like that?… For two months [the Western powers] have been mocking common sense and the Ukrainian people, while implementing another global provocative campaign.”
It appears that President Zelensky was being sarcastic when he mentioned Feb. 16 as a possible date of the Russian invasion. He referred to the US media reports. https://t.co/JVyDEsn68G
— Misha Komadovsky (@komadovsky) February 14, 2022
Naturally, Zelensky never received any “special intelligence” to prove that the Russians were revving up their engines for a full-blown assault of Ukrainian territory. What the Ukrainian leader got instead of smart intelligence was a phone call from U.S. President Joe Biden, who reportedly uttered the same warmed over allusions to the perennial bogeyman known as “Russian aggression.”
So what is going on here? Why is the Biden administration so persistent on pushing the pulp fiction of a “Russian invasion” when there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Moscow is pursuing such a misadventure?
First, it is important to remember that the jungle of U.S. domestic politics tends to spill over onto the geopolitical stage with all of the unsightly consequences. Presently, the Democrats are battling for their political lives with midterm elections fast approaching in November. And with the U.S. economy in tatters, and Americans taking a stand against radical woke experiments – which touch upon everything from draconian anti-Covid regulations that the Democrats have embraced with unsettling enthusiasm, to the teaching of Critical Race Theory and transgender lifestyles in the classroom – many pundits are of the opinion that the Democrats will lose their control of the House by a wide margin, followed by the White House in 2024.
In other words, Biden, whose popularity is at its lowest point of his presidency, desperately needs a victory lap before the home crowd — and preferably without the ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ chants, if possible. And what better way to achieve such glory than to say that he micro-managed the halt of a ‘Russian invasion,’ albeit one that existed solely in his imagination? With the U.S. media almost entirely in the pockets of the left, news of a Biden ‘triumph’ will be widely disseminated for mass consumption with only Tucker Carlson and several other dissenting voices to chuckle over the dazzling ‘accomplishment’ by the aging Commander-in-Chief.
More unsettling is that the Biden White House, totally lacking in depth when it comes to foreign policy expertise (as is the unfortunate case with the UK, by the way, which became painfully apparent when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met last week with his British counterpart, Liz Truss, who made quite an impression when she vowed to “never” accept the military buildup of Rostov and Voronezh, apparently unaware that these are major cities located in Western Russia), probably imagines that any theoretical conflict between Russia and Ukraine would remain a distant proxy war where the U.S. and its allies remain safely detached from the fallout. Thus, they will feel more compelled to give Kiev a false sense of security that NATO will jump to its rescue if push comes to shove.
An encouraging sign. Kremlin spox Peskov tries to reduce heat re Truss’s mistake on Voronezh/Rostov by describing it as a “slip of the tongue:” “Let’s call slip of the tongue a slip of the tongue,” he said. “They happen to Putin too, perhaps not on big issues, but they happen.”
— Oliver Carroll (@olliecarroll) February 11, 2022
On this point, it is hopeful that the Ukrainian leader has not forgotten the fate that befell former Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in August 2008 when he made the rash decision to launch a surprise attack on the town of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia where Russian peacekeepers had been stationed. An independent report commissioned by the European Union blamed Saakashvili, who banked it all on NATO intervention, for triggering the five-day war with Russia.
Finally, the United States has a powerful interest in fueling the Ukraine crisis not only as a means for keeping its NATO allies in lockstep formation (and weapon sales brisk), but to sabotage the Nord Stream 2 Russian pipeline to Germany. This deep economic partnership between Moscow and Berlin, which binds Russia to the European Union more than just symbolically, stands totally at odds with the U.S. government’s overriding strategic objective to prevent the emergence of a German-Russian alliance, which, together with China, would create an alternative global powerhouse capable of challenging Washington’s “lone superpower” status, which already appears bruised and battered against the ropes.
At the time of this writing – February 15 – the Russian Ministry of Defense published footage of Russian tanks and other heavy artillery returning to Russia from neighboring Belarus following military exercises, thereby seriously trashing the ‘Russian aggression’ narrative. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not miss an opportunity to shame U.S. and European officials for their insistence that Russia was preparing to launch a military strike against its neighbor.
“15 February 2022 will go down in history as the day Western war propaganda failed,” she wrote, adding that the West has been “shamed and destroyed without firing a single shot.”
It will be interesting now to see how the U.S. propaganda machine will respond to the ‘unsettling’ prospect of peace when so much had been invested on just the opposite outcome.
